Daily Archives: November 26th, 2012

Spotify recently closed a new $100 million in funding, which brings their total funding to $288 million. Mary Meeker is a partner in the firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byer, which has lead the last two rounds of $100 million each. Meeker is widely respected for her ability to see and report trends in technology, last year she predicted that mobile and audio were “the next big thing.” Apparently she thinks Spotify is as well.

Another interesting thing about this recent investment is that Coca-cola is a player as well, owning about ten percent of that latest $100 million. Last spring we began to hear of Coke’s relationship with Spotify, which was described as a marketing partnership, in which Spotify would enable Coke’s music platform, and Coke would feature Spotify on its Facebook page and advertising. It was announced then that there would be a cash investment, so now the details on that are emerging.

The value of a global brand like Coke is huge to an upstart like Spotify. Spotify is in 17 countries, and has 15 million users, so they are a long way from global. But their goal is to have everyone use their on-demand service like a song library, where you can listen to whatever you want to hear. Coke’s a brand that has associated itself with the idea of music as the universal language for a long time, which is why I like the relationship with Spotify. If you’ve been around awhile like me then you remember this ad: